The Semantics of Organics

Jennifer Duffield White

When it comes to marketing organic products, there’s more than just the organic seal at play.

Language researchers in Britain analyzed packaging and examined other language used to promote organic food in Great Britain. During the study, they also delved into the thoughts of those who developed and used the language and they gauged the public’s response to it.

What was popular? “Whether produced by supermarkets, small politically committed producers, or environmentalist campaign groups, the language used tends to be poetic, vague, dialogic, narrative, and emotive, with an emphasis upon bucolic imagery and consumer self-interest,” say the researchers in their article in “Text & Talk—An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse Communication Studies.”

And does it work? Not as much as you’d think. At least, according to their focus groups, consumers had a resistance to marketing language in general. The researchers concluded that, “attitudes to food may be less amenable to manipulation through standard promotional techniques than is commonly assumed.” GT